Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Rarely do you connect with a book after
reading the first few lines. I did as soon as I completed the first paragraph
of the prologue –

“Autumn was setting in fast and the leaves
had started changing color …… turning from green to multiple hues of golden,
red and brown, all leaves finally fall off the trees and sail towards their
final destination. Is one’s life also like a leaf, I ruminated?”

I was reminded
of my own thoughts of the Fall of how it seemed to signify the circle of our
own existence. ‘The Fall’ by Albert Camus has been another favorite influence
in my life – stripping oneself bare, exposing one’s own hypocrisy and then
rejuvenation. The Fall for me has a very great philosophical significance. So
now you can guess why I connected with the book immediately.

Another reason,
leaving gender biases aside, the book seemed to echo my own thoughts about the
travails that a person faces moving up the ladder and holding on to all the
values that he or she was brought up with, without compromises for selfish
gains.

The third and
most important factor about the book is that it has been written in a manner
that comprehension is never a problem. The simple lucid style of the author and
the inherent honesty in expressing herself filled with exciting anecdotes from
her thirty eight year long stint with a public sector bank make the book
eminently interesting. Each of the thirty chapters stands on its own. Woven together
they give you a glimpse of the author’s story as well as an insight into her steely
determination to establish herself as an individual in her own right amidst
what she feels was a male bastion. This aspect of her personality can be traced
back to her parents who rejoiced at the birth of a girl child and equipped her
with necessary strength to withstand the demands of the time.

Perceptions and
attitudes have changed over the decades after the seventies. What was once
dubbed a man’s world is no longer true what with women occupying the topmost
positions in both the financial world and the industry, but what the author
went through in the early seventies in respect of gender bias is a reality. Let
me confess that I and for that matter I am sure a large number of my colleagues
would have been dubbed as MCP’s during those days. Let me tell you that looking
back I have myself in jest written a poem on women’s liberation which my male
counterparts applauded and my women colleagues had only one word for me – MCP.

Of special
interest to me were the chapters 25 – ‘The Invisible Glass Ceiling’ and 27 – ‘Strange
are the Ways’. I received the book last evening and I finished it this
afternoon. This would vouch for its readability and sustained interest.

The epilogue – ‘Today
when I look back, I can stand tall and laugh at all the people who challenged
me, ridiculed me and told me that a woman cannot, but I did it. I did it my
way, the hard way.” Yes the
author does exactly that – she stands tall.

THE AUTHOR

Ranjana Bharij loves to calls herself a true Indian.
Her father hailed from Uttar Pradesh, mother from Rajasthan and her husband is
from Punjab. She has travelled widely across the country as well as
internationally first due to her father’s transferable job and later because of
the high mobility in her own job.

An alumnus of Lucknow
University, she taught Political Science in a Delhi University College for over
a year before joining a public sector bank; she retired from there as General
Manager in 2009 after devoting thirty eight years of her life to the service at
the bank.

A champion of women’s
cause, gender-equality is very dear to her heart. In her own words, neither her
parents nor her husband ever let her feel that a woman is inferior to man in
any manner. Naturally, any reference to her gender as a weaker sex in the
organisational context agitated her to no end.

Currently, she lives
in New Delhi with her husband Shiv while her two sons Rahul and Sidharth have
settled in Canada and USA respectively.